"So, there I was," Clint jumped onto the balcony railing, landing on the ball of one foot, "just another elf, living the elf life with all the other elves." He lept lightly across the six foot gap to the next balcony.
"You know how it goes, eating nuts and leaves, meditating, writing poetry, singing." He took a running jump onto the next balcony railing, then cartwheeled onto the one after that.
Bucky followed the increasingly complex movements from where he lay below, trying not to look impressed.
"Then one day," Clint double-flipped onto the next railing, landing on his hands and staying there, "after everyone was finished greeting the sunrise in twelve part harmony, again," he wasn't even out of breath, "I looked around and thought 'what the fuck am I even doing?'"
He popped up out of his handstand and dropped down to the balcony itself.
"The whole peace, berries 'n' bark, gazing at your navel shit just isn't for me." He rested his elbows on the railing and leaned far over it, looking down at Bucky, blond hair hanging in his face. "I need to be out here, seeing and doing new things. And eating new stuff, too. Where's the kitchen?"
"Hey! Hello! You awake?"
Bucky pried open an eye, glaring at Sam who stood there, arms crossed, dark wings rustling impatiently.
"Finally. You sleep deep. You're also blocking the front doors. Think I could get through?"
Bucky glanced over to where the "out of order" sign hung on the elevator, then scanned briefly over the arrowslit embrasures serving as windows, none of which allowed any sort of quick exit.
"No." He closed his eye and went back to his nap.
"Of course, this wasn't anywhere in my long-term plans." Bruce flashed a small, self-depreciating smile as he attached the glass bottles to the pipe protruding from the bottom of the large metal pot. "I had…so many plans." He sighed.
"Life doesn't care about our plans." Bucky had been kicked in the nuts enough by life to know that.
Bruce nodded. "No, it does not." He tilted his head back to look under his glasses as he adjusted copper tubing.
"This is what you do, then, when you're not…green?" Bucky had seen different variations of the pots, and copper and glass tubing being heated, cooled, and drained over the last few days.
"This?" Bruce chuckled and grinned, the first look of real amusement Bucky had seen on him. "No. I'm a physicist; I worked more on the theoretical side of things. I didn't originally study medicine, but the Avengers needed someone to piece them together after battle. I suppose, by now, I'd probably qualify for that degree."
He twisted a tap handle on the metal piping, and liquid, so clear it resembled water, began to pour into the bottles.
"This is, um, just something every scientist learns to do at university. Especially when you don't have the money to go out every night."
He closed the tap before the bottles could fill completely up the neck. Removing it from the piping, he waved it under his nose once before nodding in satisfaction.
Bucky leaned in close - and quickly jerked back as his sensative nose burned.
"That is not water!"
"What? Oh, no, of course not." Bruce worked a cork into the top of the bottle. "Vodka."
"Come on, man," Sam complained. "Your girl's got the back doors offline, working on the code or some shit, and the elevator's down; just let me squeeze on by. Suck in your gut a little and I got this."
Bucky let out a long, deep sigh, coincidentally expanding his ribs and forcing his side hard up against the front doors."
Then, with a victorious roar, did I bring mighty Mjölnir down upon his head, crushing his skull and everything in it to bloody pulp!" Thor stood, one foot upon the table, another on his chair, his hammer raised high in triumph as he finished reciting his tale.
"Ah, my scaled friend, the feasting was glorious that day. The wine endless, and the women willing." He lowered Mjölnir and bent to grab his mug of beer. "Verily, it was an epic battle."
Bucky watched him, raptly, tale flicking back and forth. "Tell another."
Thor lowered his now empty mug, looking at him with mild surprise. "Truly? Only in mine own lands have I been asked for more than one saga."
"Do you have more about destroying HYDRA forces?"
"Aye, a fair number. Soldiers and their foul commanders."
Bucky pulled his lips into the closest approximation he could come to a human smile.
"There's more beer in the kitchen; want me to roll out a barrel? How 'bout two?"
"I can't get enough lift to take off from the ground, I know you know that. The wall or the tower are the best options, and the wall is closest."
Bucky opened his eyes just long enough to look pointedly from Sam to the stairs.
"Now, I know you're not gonna make me climb all the way up there."
"Your legs broken?"
"What're you-"
"Want 'em to be?"
"This…this was once all I knew." Natasha gestured with a bottle, the wide sweep of her arm encompassing the snow covered courtyard.
"Cнег." She leaned back against a high snowdrift where she'd driven two other bottles into the packed snow. "Пороша. Пухляк. Наст. Целяк is best, like this. Untouched and unspoiled." Her gaze, as she looked out past Bucky, was further away than the walls behind him. "No noise, no footprints, no…screaming," small wrinkles creased her brow in a frown, "no blood."
Silence reigned for long moments, broken only by the hiss of snow falling around them, on them.
Then Natasha blinked and looked away, down at her snow covered boots. She brought the bottle to her lips and drank, the last fourth of the vodka disappearing quickly. She wiped her mouth on the back of her wolf-skin coat before dropping the empty bottle and yanking a full one out of the drift.
"That is not a tale to tell; it's unfinished. A good story has an ending." She pulled out the cork and took a swig.
Bucky nodded, sending the snow on his muzzle sliding off to the side. "You know a lot of stories?"
She smirked. "When Буран - snowstorm - howls outside, and снег - the snow piles to the roof, what else is there to do but eat, sleep, drink, train, ебать, and spin tales?"
"Are any of them true?"
"What's truth?" She shrugged. "Everything is subjective."
"Uh-huh." Flicking snow off his arms and paws, Bucky laid one atop the other and rested his chin on both.
"So let's hear one of 'em."
Natasha took a slow drink, wiped her lips before speaking again. "I know wonderful battle tales. Men against legendary monsters, or against other men, fighting for country, honor, and life. Everyone dies.
"Romance. Lovers meeting, fate tearing them apart, fighting to reunite, secret pregnancies, glimpsing each other one last time. Everyone dies.
"Oh, so many tales of politics. Royals, spies, assassins, evil twins, evil priests, meddling aunties, pretenders to the throne, princes and princesses struggling to save their regimes. Everyone dies."
Bucky just looked at her for a moment. "I'll take one where everyone dies."
She nodded. "Good choice."
Bucky didn't let the exaggerated sound of boots clomping down the stairs, or the overdramatic gasping for air distract him from his dinner. He didn't even bother looking up as Sam came to a staggering, swaying stop.
"That-" Sam drew in a whopping breath of air, bending over and catching his hands on his knees. "That was not right!" He remained there, head down, heaving for breath.
Bucky just tore off another strip of meat.
"That's gotta be like, ten thousand stairs or something. I get up there, and the door's locked! From the outside!"
"Sounds like a you problem," Bucky rumbled, tone dismissive.
"Okay, you know what, fu-" Sam stood up, pointing at Bucky, then froze. "What the hell?" He gaped, shifting his pointing to the gryphon carcass Bucky was tearing into.
"Did…did you…. While I was slogging my way up and down those damn stairs, did you actually move your frozen ass away from that door and go get yourself lunch?" he asked, incredulously.
"Yeah. Why?" Bucky ripped a wing off and spit it out, feathers flying. "Relative of yours?"
"I can't wait for you to meet her, Buck." Steve sat between the merlons atop the castle wall battlement, one foot dangling down, swaying lightly back and forth. "Peggy is…is…she's just perfect."
He had a dazed look on his face and Bucky was tempted to tell him he looked like an idiot, but instead he snorted his skepticism, icing over the stones just below Steve's boot.
"She might be a real nice gal, Steve, but she's no Toni Stark."
Steve shook his head. "You don't get it. Peg…there's just something about her. The way she smiles, how she stands, the way she can look at a map and just know the best strategy, how commanding she can be, how much she cares. She has such a soft side, Buck, I…." He sighed deeply. "I miss her; I wish she'd come with us more, but she says someone has to keep things in order.
"We manage letters, if I'm in one place long enough to start sending any, but mostly we have to go months without any contact."
Abruptly, Steve leaned back to give a quick look up and down the battlement, then a glance out over the courtyard, then he smiled.
"I don't want to forget a single thing about Peggy, so I've been writing poems about her, and I set them to music."
He pulled a lute and bow out of the bag he'd brought up with him.
"It's new, so give me a sec," he said as he plucked at the strings one by one and twisted the wooden pegs
"Okay," he said when he finally looked satisfied, "I call this one 'I Love You, Peggy.'" Then he put bow to strings and began to play.
Bucky had previously been under the impression that musical instruments were inherently melodious. That they were a wondrous invention meant to bring peace and harmony to the soul. That they were not, in fact, capable of imitating the sound of nails on a chalkboard.
Bucky was, of course, a fool.
He reared back in horror, ears flattening to his head at the discordant screeching. And then it grew worse; Steve opened his mouth and - that was not singing. Cats in heat sounded better - hell, a fox could carry a better tune with its mating call.
"I love you, Peggy!
And I'm not sayin' maybe!
It's only for you that my heart does beat!
I'll never treat you like a piece of-"
"Nope! No, no, no!" Suddenly Sam was swooping down, landing on top of a merlon and yanking the bow from Steve's hand.
"Hey!" Steve protested into the abrupt, blessed silence, trying to grab it back.
But then Thor was there, trying to grab hold of his lute. "Now, friend Steve, we have had this discussion," he chided, even as Steve scrambled to his feet and held his lute close, glaring.
"Oh, fuck my life; didn't anyone tell you the rules?"
Bucky looked down to find both Clint and Natasha scaling the inner wall at a rapid pace, Clint giving him a dismayed look.
"It's real simple," Clint said, as they both hauled themselves up onto the battlement. "There's only six of 'em."
"Never dare this one to do anything." Natasha tilted her head towards Clint before springing forward to snatch the lute from Steve's grasp.
"Never get in a drinking contest with her." Clint bent down, grabbed Steve's bag, and threw it over the wall into the courtyard. It rained musical instruments as it fell, from tin whistles to small drums.
"Never make Banner angry." Clint rested his arms atop a merlon, smiling as Steve's lute soared past him to join its brethren below.
"Never pluck a bird around Sam."
Bucky had to suppress a chuckle, because, too late.
"Never feed Thor after midnight. And never, I mean never let Steve play an instrument or sing!"
"Oh, come on!" Steve was being restrained by Thor and Sam while Natasha frisked him for extra instruments, finding a harmonica, an ocarina, a pan flute, a mouth harp, even a kazoo, and tossing them all over the wall.
"They're all brand new!" he protested.
"It's for your own good." Natasha held no sympathy in her tone. She pulled out an actual concertina from inside his vest.
"You get the point?" Clint asked.
"Yeah." Bucky nodded.
"At least let me keep the maracas!
"HULK NOT LIKE! PUNY BANNER NOT LIKE!"
Bucky quickly yanked himself to the side, well out of the way as Hulk came barreling through, landing with a crunch in the pile of instruments. Immediately he grabbed the first thing to hand, the lute, and began smashing it on the cobblestones.
"BAD MUSIC! HULK HEAD HURT!"
"Same, bro, same," said Clint.